The U.S. Pat. No. 7,387,548 discloses a female electrical connector with an essentially cylindrical electrical contact, the central portion of which is comprises a neck portion to contact a complementary male electrical connector. The electrical contact is a laminate of a member with high electric conductivity, which may be made of copper or a copper alloy, and a spring member made e.g. of stainless steel, phosphor-bronze or beryllium. In one embodiment, the spring member is located on the outside of the electrical contact and the member with high electrical conductivity is located on the inside. End portions of the latter member are folded over the ends of the spring member, to provide portions of the highly electrically conductive member which are pressed against the inner wall of the housing of the electrical connector by means of the spring member in order to provide en electrical contact with the housing.
It can be a disadvantage of this prior art electrical connector that at high temperatures the elasticity of the spring member weakens and no longer presses the highly electrically conductive member against the inner wall of the housing with enough force to provide for a reliable electrical contact.
From the German patent application DE 103 39 958 A1 a wrap connection to connect an electrode wire to an implantable cardiac pacemaker, defibrillator or the like is known. It comprises a tubular contact spring element with multiple longitudinal slits to form longitudinally extending flexible inwardly arched tongues. If an electrode wire plug is introduced into the wrap connection, the tongues are resiliently deflected outwardly to resiliently press against a contact surface of the plug. Moreover, a support spring element of silicone rubber clasps around the spring element to increase the contact pressure between the wrap connection's contact spring element and the plug's contact surface.
A possible disadvantage of this prior art device is that at high temperatures the elasticity of the spring member as well as that of the silicone rubber ring will decrease. As a result, the contact pressure may no longer be sufficient to provide for a reliable electrical contact.
From the international patent application WO 2003/044901 A1 an electrical connector is known, which comprises a tubular contact formed of a plurality of elongated contact strips mounted in a bore of a housing of the electrical connector. The contact is at one end provided with anchor means for fixedly connecting this end of the contact to a first end of the housing. These anchor means can e.g. be clamped between the housing and a tight-fitting annular collar slipped over the housing. Moreover, the other end of the contact is provided with further anchor means for fixedly connecting this other end of the contact to the housing, e.g. by means of a rivet.
The German Patent publication DE 198 36 196 C2 discloses a high-voltage electrical connector with a contact spring in its inner volume and an opening at one end of the inner volume for a complementary connector to be introduced into the electrical connector. The opening of the housing is provided with a thread into which a ring can be screwed in order to clamp a collar of the contact spring so that the contact is on one side fixed inside the housing.